In order to maximize the output of a melt polycarbonate production plant it would be optimal to run the melt polycarbonate production equipment continuously. Unfortunately this is not practicable since it has been observed that the quality of the product polycarbonate will deteriorate over time as residual reaction components contained within the polycarbonate production equipment degrade.
Further, with the advent of specialty polymers, it is often desirable for a plant to be able to produce a wide range of polycarbonate homopolymer and copolymer compositions. The plant operator would often find it more cost efficient to employ the same production equipment to produce these wide ranges of different polymers. It would be extremely beneficial to find a method and a cleaning agent that could quickly clean the melt polycarbonate production equipment, without introducing foreign contaminants to the system, to facilitate changeover from the manufacture of one specialty polycarbonate to another.